


Eddie Takes the Plunge

by tvfordessert



Category: IT (2017)
Genre: High School Aged, Lowkey Reddie, M/M, Skinny Dipping, Strip Poker, more about the losers up to their usual nonsense, non-sexual nudity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-18 05:25:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13675146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tvfordessert/pseuds/tvfordessert
Summary: Why can't Eddie have normal friends?aka - the losers play strip poker, because why not?





	Eddie Takes the Plunge

 

"I will pay good money to play any other fucking game right now."

Eddie Kaspbrak had been swindled down to his briefs and officially hated all of his friends - especially Richie Tozier.

As if to capitalize on his discontent, they only responded to his request with a bout of laughter that had become thematic of the evening.   

"Come on, Eddie." Bill Denbrough casually shuffled a deck of cards. "You've made it this f-far."

"Yeah, Eds." Richie chimed in from beside him.

Where Bill's argument attempted rationality, Richie opted to pinch the skin on the side of Eddie's exposed stomach.

"Better get ready to take the plunge." He continued to goad even as Eddie flinched away from his touch.

"Has anyone ever told you that you have the worst ideas?"

How Richie talked any of them into spending their Friday half-naked at the quarry was beyond him. Yet, here they sat atop rocks in various states of undress engaged in a game of strip poker. Why couldn't Eddie have normal friends?

Somehow Richie Tozier, who had developed quite a knack and fixation for card games, had decided that this would be a fun way to kick off their weekend.

Eddie saw through this ruse. The Loser's Club had grown tired of indulging his poker habit, but Richie wouldn't be able to retire until he bested their champion Mike Hanlon.   

Though Richie had been the one to pick up the habit and bring it to the rest of them, Mike possessed a supernatural talent for the game as evidenced by the fact that he remained the most clothed among them.

"Don't look at me - I'm _constantly_ reminding you guys that Trashmouth has horrible ideas." Stan Uris replied bitterly behind his newly-dealt hand of cards.

A series of catastrophically poor hands had put Stan right behind Eddie in terms of disrobed garments.

"Most times before I even say anything; which I don't think is fair." Richie's mouth formed the response to Stan, but his eyes were clearly expending the majority of his mentally energy as he analyzed Mike Hanlon receiving his cards.

The mastermind of this evening's misadventure had not been doing too bad for himself over the course of their game. He had only managed to lose his shoes, socks, and gregariously patterned Hawaiian shirt. Bill's status was similar; the two were decent players but neither could hold a candle to Mike who had yet to run out of footgear.

"I'm listening to Stan next time." Ben Hanscom concurred.

He and Stan were sitting next to each other and between the two of them they formed one fully clothed person. Where Stan had lost all but his pants and underwear, Ben had done the reverse - keeping the plump top half, of which he was self-conscious, covered with a t-shirt while his underwear remained intact below.

The misfortune of these two served only as a small condolence to Eddie who had yet to win a single hand.

The conceit of poker always managed to mislead Eddie. Being one of the most studious Losers, he assumed his accumulated intellect could carry him through the game with ease and he always managed to underestimate the powerful forces of luck and bluffing. As it turned out, Eddie had little to no mastery of these skills and each time they played he seemed to be getting worse - but this was surely to be his most humiliating loss to-date.

As Bill finished doling out their most recent hand, it felt as though he was drawing the final line in a game of hang man where Eddie was the crude stick-figure.   

Accepting the inevitable fate pressing upon him, Eddie was relieved, in small part, that he wouldn't have to sit in his humiliation for long. When Richie had teased him about "taking the plunge", he was referring to the second phase of his "brilliant" plan. Since the novel bemusement of strip poker had an expiration before it just devolved into sitting uncomfortably naked in front of all your friends, Richie's solution involved having the losers among the Losers hurl themselves off the quarry and into the chill waters that lie patiently beneath them.

"Hey Eddie, I think we're starting." Ben softly nudged with a painful degree of kindness.

The boy must have noticed Eddie's mind had seemingly wandered off the edge of the quarry prematurely as he'd yet to glance down at the cards Bill had handed him.

A three and a jack.

Eddie gulped nervously, he may be able to get somewhere with this hand but it was by no means a winning one and he knew better than to be optimistic about his chances of bluffing particularly in his current state.

"Got a good one then, Eds?" Richie teased.

"None of your business."

If Tozier hadn't been so dead-set on beating Hanlon over the past couple of weeks, Eddie would have sworn that Richie somehow rigged this whole thing to make him as uncomfortable as possible. Their trashmouthed friend seemed to derive an unnatural pleasure from watching Eddie squirm; but if that was his intention, he should have realized by now that there were much easier methods to achieve that goal especially when the friend he aimed to make uneasy harbored about one-hundred phobias as well as a enormous crush on him, stupid Hawaiian shirts and all.   

In a concerted effort to bluff his way out of imminent nudity, Eddie avoided the wandering glance of his talkative neighbor at the poker "table" for the remainder of the game. Unfortunately, this strategy didn't help as Stan emerged the unlikely victor of the round with an unusually lucky hand resulting in a royal flush that managed to take even Mike by surprise.

The anxiety that had been slowly stewing in Eddie's stomach from the instant he had to take off his first item of the evening had come to a full boil.

Though other's had lost some articles this round, all eyes turned to the boy fidgeting strongly enough to burn a hole in the ground below him.

"You don't have to do it, Eddie." Bill offered kindly but also with a threatening certainty directed towards Richie who he believed had peer-pressured them into enough for one evening.

With that, Eddie exchanged a momentary glance with the spectacled boy beside him who wore a furrowed brow but did not seem prepared to openly disagree with their card dealer.

"Fine." He sighed almost angrily asking himself why he felt the need to seek Richie's permission.

Eddie knew his reputation with the Losers was not that of the bravest among their ranks, but he was not about to blatantly bail on a challenge this idiotic.

He stood up and, in one swift motion, pulled down his briefs and just as quickly bolted toward the edge of the quarry causing the other players to rush after him and examine the scene below.

"I've never seen him jump off the edge that quickly." Ben commented, almost to himself.

"Yeah, he's usually the last one down." Mike added.

"Well what choice did he have?" Stan stood firmly by his belief that this whole exercise was peak-Tozier stupidity and he wanted no part of it. "His other option would have been to stay up here naked with us."

"How's the water?" Richie ignored the chatter around him to shout down toward the inadequate card player.

"I hate you." No one could argue that this wasn't the most appropriate response.

"Now what?" Bill turned away from the edge of the quarry to face his friends. "Do we keep p-playing?"

"You're right." Richie responded in a sensible tone that seemed to contradict the illogical process by which he was peeling off his remaining layers.

"I didn't say anything." Bill looked around confused.

"What the fuck are you doing, Richie?" Just when Stan didn't think this ordeal could get worse, Trashmouth appeared to be stripping.

"Solidarity." The boy, now clad only in his glasses and boxers, stated as he walked back in order to get a running start.

"I'm pretty sure he just doesn't want to lose to you again." Bill spoke lowly to the boy he knew would beat them all out if they were to continue playing.

"That's not Stan's theory." Mike recalled a conversation he had with their cynical friend on the ride over.

"What's that?" Ben, on the other hand, was innocently out-of-the-loop.

"He just wanted to get Eddie naked." Stan replied flatly in Richie's direction, not even attempting to hold back this judgment.

"Wanna know the flaw in that theory Professor Uris?" He may have thrown his glasses down, but Richie could still _hear_ his friends clearly as they were merely feet away.

"Please, enlighten me Richie." He replied with a deadpan stare.

"If I wanted our Eds to strip down for me, all I'd have to do is ask real nice." He exaggerated the cock-sure statement by pulling down his boxers and kicking them to the side.

"Besides, that'd be a lot more fun without the rest of you Losers around." Richie winked before breaking out into a full sprint.

"I'M COMING FOR YA, EDS!" Was the last thing they heard echo across the quarry before an ungraceful splash.

"Ugh, he even screams in annoying accents." Stan turned to find only Ben Hanscom beside him.

"Not you too?" His gaze stretched a few feet back where Mike and Bill had begun a similar disrobing routine.

"The annoying one has a point." Mike employed the affectionate nickname that he and Stan had assigned their friend which he doubted the boy, who proudly called himself Trashmouth ,would mind.

"Which is?" This evening was thoroughly exasperating the most practical member of the Losers Club.

"Solidarity." Ben sounded from beside him.

"Goddamnit, I'm gonna have to do this too aren't I?" Bill just smiled faintly as a response which seemed to seal Stan's fate.

"Fucking Tozier." He mumbled as he indignantly reached for the buckle on his pants.

If one were simply handed a transcript of what followed, they would not have known the young men of the Losers Club were swimming around in the nude. That is to say, that while the remainder of their evening was in fact spent skinny dipping, there wasn't much awkwardness to it at all. Perhaps because it was getting dark by the time Eddie had lost that final hand or they simply forgot to care that they were naked once they fell into their usual routine of shooting-the-shit. Either way, what promised to be one of their most collectively embarrassing evenings turned into a unique event which they'd actually look back on fondly, much too Beverly Marsh's jealously since she was out-of-town at the time though they insist that she wouldn't have wanted to be there in the end.

 


End file.
